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Monday, August 30, 2010

Getting Into the Holiday Spirit

Living among Christmas Celebrators for almost my entire life, I have picked up on a notion of the "Holiday Spirit" that ushers in the Holidays of Christmas and New Year's. Folks are generally more friendly and generous under the "guise" of Holiday Spirit.

Seeing as Rosh Hashana is a mere 9 days away, if we were Christian and the New Year was 9 days away, we would be knee-deep in the "Holiday Spirit". A congregant of mine told me an anecdote that would fit neatly in the "Holiday Spirit" if we had an equivalent. But alas, our Holiday Spirit is usually getting out of bed early for slichos and nothing more.

This fellow (happens to be a BT) was shopping at the local butcher (Western Kosher) and he noticed a frum woman had stacked her yogurt on top of her chicken. Now, most FFBs don't think twice about that kind of move, but I know MANY BTs who prefer to keep their milk and meat products separate in their shopping carts. (Yes, baseless, silly, superstitious, hyper-sensitive, call it what you want, let's move on to the point of the story.) So the fellow thinks about saying something to the nice lady but thought it was a silly thing to bring to her attention because he realized that there is nothing wrong with stacking cold yogurt in a package on top of cold chicken in a package.

By now, she had caught his attention and he noticed that she was holding a list with at least 8 or 9 items. Her overhears that woman say to the manager "Please put $1000 in the Schwartz* account. $1000 in the Goldberg account. $1000 in the Cohen account." and so she went for a few minutes, quite simply crediting at least 8 or 9 families with $1000 out of her own pocket. This fellow was witnessing a true act of charity. Charity given in the most respectful way with no begging, handouts or embarrassment. An estimated $10,000 went to the less fortunate of Los Angeles last week from this woman alone.

If it relates to Jews, Judaism, holidays, Midrash,Torah, halacha or anything similar, I probably have a post on it. And if I have a post on it, I probably have a good comment thread with great reader-provided information, too.

Try a search and see for yourself. If you can't find what you're looking for ask me.

Quotes

רֹאשׁ דְּבָרְךָ אֱמֶת קוֹרֵא מֵרֹאשׁ דּוֹר וָדוֹר עַם דּוֹרֶשְׁךָ דְּרֹשׁ
Your chief word is "truth"; You've called it out since the beginning. In each generation people interpret You [for themselves] and find [their own] meaning.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd. -Flannery O'Connor

“When in the afterglow of religious insight I can see a way that is good for all humans as it is for me—I will know it is His way.” - R. Abraham Joshua Heschel

I don't accept at all the quite popular argument that the press is responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. The monarchy's responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. To blame the press is the old thing of blaming the messenger for the message. -Anthony Holden

Said behind my back

"...he's trying to show that there are other facets to Orthodox Judaism. That we don't all think one way and vote one way. And he's occasionally entertaining when he's not being mean-spirited" [PsychoToddler]"

"He's witty. He's funny. He appreciates the ridiculous in life, and has no qualms about telling you when he thinks that you're being a moron" [Cara]

" I'm pretty sure [DovBear] is a really great guy who just wants to be able to ask questions and talk about things without the fear of someone claiming he's off the derech or on his way there." [Chaviva]